


Routine

by MykaWells



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Fix-It, Love Confessions, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MykaWells/pseuds/MykaWells
Summary: Five days after Warehouse 13 agents contribute their memories to the table, Helena arrives to contribute her own Warehouse 13 defining moment. Myka is there to greet her.
Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells
Comments: 7
Kudos: 70





	Routine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted over 5 years ago on tumblr as a Secret Santa gift for the lovely a-windsor. I'm only now remembering it exists and was never posted here. Better late than never, I guess!
> 
> As this is a series finale fix-it, there are mentions of Pyka, but no actual Pyka action so I didn't tag it.

In some ways, things were so spectacularly routine for Myka.

Pete and Steve were off on what had turned into a nearly five-day retrieval of the basketball Pete was so excited about, while Claudia was deep in the Warehouse doing a system upgrade against Artie’s better judgment and under his close supervision.

It all felt so very comfortable until Myka picked up the latest volume of the manual. It was then that she remembered all the decidedly not-normal, not-routine that had been happening around her lately.

To start with, she had lied to Pete. Well, technically she hadn’t exactly lied when she claimed she hadn’t read the whole manual. Myka just failed to mention that there was only a 10-page gap in her knowledge of the manual because she’d dozed off reading the newest volume a few nights earlier.

Myka knew it wasn’t like her to mislead Pete, at least not about something like that. She’d never hid her knowledge of the Warehouse before, and she certainly wasn’t ashamed of her encyclopedic knowledge of the manual. Things around Pete had just been…weird lately.

There wasn’t really a better way to describe it than _weird_. Myka didn’t like that their usual effortless rapport had been shifting under her feet, that it was different, that Pete seemed skittish and on edge around her. Myka thought leading Pete to believe that there was something to be researched might either put them back in a familiar space or give Myka an opportunity to occupy Pete while she figured out what the hell was going on.

Then she realized all at once what was happening. She saw it in the moment at the end of her contribution to the table. Saw that their relationship was slipping into something different or that Pete’s perception of the relationship was moving in that direction.

Myka loved Pete. She really did. Maybe it had started to slip into _in_ love while she wasn’t looking. Pete was, after all, very perceptive about these things. And Steve seemed to notice something too. Maybe they were right. Maybe Pete and Myka were in love.

So Myka tried. She kissed Pete, and Pete kissed her and they flirted and held hands. And it was…alright. Aside from the different-ness, there wasn’t anything especially awful about. There just wasn’t anything earth-shattering. She hadn’t felt the spark she expected when she kissed Pete. It wasn’t anything like when looked at Sam, or touched him, or kissed him.

She’d been deeply in love one other time, had fallen in love in this very Warehouse, and this didn’t feel the same. There was a special feeling, an aliveness to the air in this place as it was happening. In every single second, Myka had felt that energy vibrating in that special Warehouse air.

Myka hadn’t felt any of that with Pete.

But she hadn’t had a ton to overthink that reaction, or lack of reaction, because they had a ping almost right after the kiss, which meant lots of researching and brainstorming and work stuff.

She had worked diligently, reading pages and pages of basketball statistics in the corner of the room, while Claudia scanned the system, Steve watched over her shoulder, and Pete and Artie bickered over possible original owners of the artifact in question. It felt good and natural and normal, which allowed Myka to not be bothered by the weirdness of her new relationship with Pete.

Then they shared one quick kiss before Pete and Steve left for Florida, and that had been about the extent of Myka’s physical contact with Pete. They’d spoken by Farnsworth a few times, but mostly about the case. When they did talk about going on a date and other romantic things, Myka kept it brief. Pete seemed to pick up on that and hadn’t mentioned it again.

And now, the less they talked about the kiss they’d shared, the less real it became. Myka liked it that way. She didn’t think she should like that feeling, the distance and disconnect, but she did. The less like a romantic couple she and Pete acted, the better, the more comfortable Myka felt.

They still worked well together, had even had a breakthrough not two hours earlier that moved Pete and Steve a lot closer to the artifact. By Myka’s calculations, they should’ve been snagging the artifact any minute. So there she was sitting in the office doing her very best to focus on the newest addendum to the manual. It was mostly to keep her mind away from her new reality while waiting to hear back from Steve and Pete, but Myka was also particularly interested in getting this volume done so that she could again claim complete knowledge of the massive text.

She was almost done, with only five pages left on the new goo disposal protocol, when she heard the heavy metal door open. Myka did not immediately turn around or even look up, expecting it would be Abigail coming to drop off the takeout lunch she occasionally treated everyone to.

Then the door closed, and instead of rustling bags and Abigail’s usual greeting, there was silence. No footsteps, no movement, nothing.

Myka looked up and turned around to see who it was. It was her turn to freeze on the spot.

“Helena?”

Helena took a step towards Myka, hands stuck in her jean pockets. She nodded, looked down at Myka’s feet, then up at her eyes, then to the corner of the room.

She smiled, then looked to Myka again.

“I’m terribly sorry that I arrived late,” Helena said. “Mrs. Fredric only told me yesterday that the Warehouse needed my defining moment, that my Warehouse 12 memory would not, as it turned out, suffice for Warehouse 13. She said it felt…incomplete without me.”

“I, oh, ok,” Myka said. “That makes sense. I’m glad, I mean, it’s nice to see you. Really good to see you.”

Then Myka, in what she knew was an embarrassingly delayed reaction, smiled brightly and stood up to give Helena a hug.

Myka truly was happy to see Helena. It just so happened that seeing her at the precise moment in time, in Myka’s particular circumstance, was a shock to the system. They’d spoken on the phone a few times and exchanged letters, but Myka had only seen Helena once in the year since Boone, and that had been a very brief, strictly mission-related conversation with about four other people around. She hadn’t been in a room alone with Helena for quite some time. And that had been…intense.

“Yes, yes it’s good to be here,” Helena said as she took a step back after an embrace that lingered a beat longer than perhaps it ought to have. She looked at Myka and smiled brightly. “There are some things about this place that I miss terribly.”

Myka’s gaze lingered for a second before she looked quickly away, towards an open book on basketball in the 1970s that Artie had left open on his desk to Myka’s left. She felt the heat crawl up her neck and into her cheeks.

“So,” Myka said. “You’re just coming to give your memory, then?”

“That is my primary excuse for visiting, yes,” Helena said. “Although I have a number of vacation days that are simply going to waste. So I will stay on a bit longer if—

“Yes,” Myka said immediately. It was instinct, this knee jerk desire to have Helena stay. No matter how complicated it could make things, what a twisted up emotional mess it might create, Myka wanted Helena to stay and would say yes every single time.

“I mean, if you’re asking me,” Myka added. “Yes, I think it’d be nice. And you know there’s always enough rooms at Leena’s.”

“Alright then,” Helena said with a little grin that was part relief, part amusement on her lips. “In that case, I can stay for a few days. Perhaps help on cases in a pinch.”

“That’d be great,” Myka said brightly, then added to maintain some semblance of coolness. “I mean, yeah, that might be good to have. Another pair of eyes to have. To look at things. Artifact things. You know what, let me just stop talking now and show you where the table is?”

Helena smirked and nodded as she gestured to the door leading to the Warehouse.

“As you wish, Agent Bering,” she said. Myka took a deep breath and walked briskly across the room towards the warehouse.

* * *

The twisting, turning path towards the table should have felt long. It _was_ long. But walking with Helena, talking to Helena, or rather listening to Helena talk, made things shorter. Myka’d nearly let herself forget the way the air buzzed with electricity, the way energy amplified when she was with Helena; it was a small miracle that the air didn’t literally crackle with an electricity that only Myka could feel.

And it had been so long since she’d felt it, since she’d spent time in the actual Warehouse with Helena, that Myka just wanted to savored the feeling. Without worrying about external factors, Myka just enjoyed Helena, because she always forgot how much she missed the woman until they met after so much time apart.

She listened as Helena rambled, about current events possibly inspired by artifacts, about the handful of cases that Myka had mentioned in their letters, about and the two she’d actually assisted with since Boone. Myka knew that Helena was just filling the space with words, making what amounted to small talk for a former and current Warehouse agent. But Myka didn’t care. This was _Helena_. Helena Wells without so much as a trace of Emily Lake. And Myka would never _not_ want that.

Myka was actually disappointed when they arrived at their destination. Both she and Helena hesitated at the door, a pretty nondescript door to say it housed the artifact that contained several thousand years’ worth of treasured memories.

“Well,” Helena said, looking the door up and down. She took a deep breath. “Here we are then?”

Myka swallowed and nodded, suddenly nervous at the prospect of seeing Helena’s moment. There had been so many memories, both wonderful and devastatingly painful that could be Helena’s defining moment. Would Helena choose, or would she let the table decide for her? Would she even want Myka to see what the table might pull out of her?

Helena pushed the door open and Myka followed her into the room. It was dimly lit, as if already occupied.

“Hello,” Mrs. Fredric said from the far corner of the room where she’d been sitting, apparently waiting for them.

Myka jumped, even though she really should learn to expect these things. She didn’t even bother asking how and when the woman had managed to find her way into the Warehouse.

Perhaps sensing the unasked question, Mrs. Fredric smiled enigmatically and stood as she crossed to the table and took a seat.

“I’ve taken the liberty of activating the table,” Mrs. Fredric said, gesturing to a chair to her right. “Please take a seat.”

Helena nodded wordlessly, glanced at Myka, and took her seat at the table. Mrs. Fredric looked at Myka and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you going to join us, Agent Bering?” Mrs. Fredric asked.

It felt less like a question and more like a command. Still Myka hesitated and looked to Helena, as if for permission. Helena nodded.

“If my understanding is correct,” Helena said. “This works best when there is another agent present as a witness to the memory.”

Myka did as she was told, leaving a few seats worth of space between her and Helena, so that she was sitting almost opposite Mrs. Fredric. She rested her hands on the table in front of her, as did Mrs. Fredric. Then Helena rose slowly, stretched her fingers out, and placed both hands on the table.

There was a two-second delay before the images sprang up above the table. Images of Helena bronzed, then un-bronzed, then teslas and imperceptor vests, flashing with increasing speed until Myka couldn’t distinguish one image from the next.

Myka remembered watching this process before, but this felt different. There was an intense, manic energy in the way that Helena’s memories flowed from her. As if she had too many to fit in that small space of time. Helena gasped and closed her eyes as the memories sped up as if experiencing something akin to sensory overload.

Then it all stopped. There was a stillness to the moment so startling that Myka at first didn’t notice the table had settled on its memory. Until she did. It was all Myka could do to not look away.

There was a dreamlike quality to the memory, a surreal, slow-motion kind of silence. Helena knelt in the dusty dirt of Yellowstone, head in her trembling hands as she took shallow, jagged breaths. She looked so broken, heartbroken beyond the point of tears.

Then all the sound rushed into the memory at once, and it sped up to regular time.

_“H.G.,” Myka demanded, her voice distant and echoing. Then she added with a bit more softness. “Helena?”_

_Helena did not look up. It was not clear if she even heard Myka, or if she was too lost in her pain to hear anything. Myka knelt down in front of Helena and gently took one of her hands so that she could see Helena’s face. Helena finally looked up at her, perhaps hoping Myka might say something. Then Myka slowly, wordlessly reached in her back pocket and pulled out handcuffs._

_Helena swallowed and nodded, presenting her other hand to be cuffed._

_“I would say something,” Myka said, her voice cracking as she fastened the cuffs loosely around Helena’s first wrist. “But I don’t, I have nothing left, H.G.”_

_Helena remained silent, her eyes fixed on her own knees._

_Myka shook her head as she fastened the cuff around the other wrist._

_“I trusted you,” Myka said, her voice small and wavering under the weight of what those words were trying to say. “I trusted you so much.”_

_She just knelt there for a moment looking at handcuffed Helena until Helena looked up at her. Helena swallowed hard, her lips parted and trembling as if she was about to say something. Then she shut her mouth again._

_“Come on,” Myka said, taking Helena by the elbow. Helena stood with Myka’s support. “The helicopter will be here any minute.”_

_Helena sighed and looked at Myka as Myka looked to the sky._

Then the memory froze, right there, on Helena’s face. Helena’s beautiful, heartbroken face.

Helena pulled her hands away from the table as if burned, though the image stayed up there. She looked up at it for a moment before appearing to have a moment of clarity.

“Will that do, then?” Helena asked briskly as she turned to Mrs. Fredric.

“I believe it should,” Mrs. Fredric said.

The words were no sooner out of Mrs. Fredric’s mouth than Helena was heading for the door.

Myka’s eyes lingered on the image of Helena in Yellowstone, which started to fade away as Helena left the room. Myka looked to Mrs. Fredric, who just nodded towards the door. Myka moved across the room almost as fast as Helena had.

By the time Myka got outside of the room, Helena was nowhere to be found. Given the size of the Warehouse, the woman could, theoretically, be headed to any number of places. But Myka knew Helena better than anyone, and the woman was nothing if not a creature of habit. She would almost definitely find sanctuary among books.

So she walked towards the front left corner of the Warehouse. There was a small, cozy room there with a sofa and comfortable chairs, first edition classics, and a perpetually burning fire in the fireplace. It was one of Helena’s favorite spots in the Warehouse to relax. She said it looked exactly like a room they had in Warehouse 12, and Myka had her suspicions that it was somehow the exact same room.

When Myka entered the room, it was to find Helena stretched out on the couch with her eyes closed.

Myka hesitated in the doorway.

“I knew you’d find me,” Helena said without moving. “You can come in.”

Myka crossed the room, moved a pillow from the sofa and lifted Helena’s feet so that she could sit on the couch, then rested Helena’s feet in her lap.

“Well, I suppose you can tell that I did not choose that memory,” Helena said after a long beat of silence. “I was hoping it might be something a bit more…flattering.”

“It was definitely…intense,” Myka said.

Helena opened her eyes and half-smiled up at Myka.

“I suppose that would be one word for it,” Helena said. She paused, then moved her feet off of Myka’s lap and sat up. “Do you know why it chose that memory of all possible moments in my tenure as a Warehouse agent?”

“No, but, I mean, I guess,” Myka said. “It was the last time you were technically a full agent.”

Helena shook her head.

“I’d forgotten about that moment. Really, more like blocked it out,” Helena said. “It was the moment I realized without a doubt that I was irrevocably in love with you. I had my suspicions before, but this was the moment of clarity, where I recognized the depth of it. I realized for the first time the magnitude of the things I had sacrificed.”

Myka’s breath caught at the way that declaration fell so easily and with such certainty off of Helena’s lips. It had been years _, years_ , and they had always managed to skirt around the issue, to come up just short of making such bold, overt declarations as this. Now, _now_ , of all possible times, this mystical table was giving Helena a new certainty and boldness. _Now_ , when she couldn’t possibly do anything about it, not with a girlfriend waiting back home.

Helena was looking at Myka now, waiting for her to say something.

“You realized you loved me the moment I put you in handcuffs?” Myka replied. She knew it was a lame response, but it was the very first appropriate, coherent thought to pop into her head.

Helena smiled affectionately.

“It was the way you did it,” Helena said. “You had every right to throw me face down in the dirt and handcuff me. To curse me out and push me around at the very least. But you didn’t. You were gentle in ways I didn’t deserve. And the way you talked about trusting me? I knew in that moment that I had broken your heart, and knowing that hurt to the point of physical pain. I had found something, someone, so rare and precious, and I was so dense that it took you arresting me for attempted genocide to realize it.”

“And then it was too late.”

“And then it was too late,” Helena said with a rueful smile. “And then I was a hologram. Then I was off on my merry adventures trying to be useful enough that the regents wouldn’t re-bronze me. Followed by a stint as a housewife tucked away in Boone. And now I’m here.”

“Now you’re here,” Myka said. “Dating Giselle.”

That fact should not have bothered Myka. It should not have even entered her head as something to be bothered by. She had no right to be, but she was nonetheless.

“I’m not dating Giselle anymore,” Helena said. She smiled and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind Myka’s ear. “She was a fleeting romance, a pleasant affair that ran its course. None of the depth or intensity that one would look for in an enduring romance.”

Myka felt her cheeks flush and her pulse quicken as Helena scooted closer and left her hand resting in Myka’s hair. The electricity in the air was intoxicating and Myka couldn’t help leaning closer.

“When?” Myka asked, her eyes going involuntarily to Helena’s lips.

“It happened about two weeks ago,” Helena said. “Shortly after my last letter to you. I was going to mention it in our next correspondence.”

“Oh, ok,” Myka said lamely. Words were suddenly failing her because Helena was sitting close, so close, and they hadn’t been this close in a long, long time.

Then, before Myka knew what was happening, Helena’s lips were on her lips and there weren't just fireworks, but electricity and heat and _fire_. It was everything that she’d hoped kissing Pete would be.

_Pete._

Myka pulled abruptly away and stood up. She’d forgotten about Pete. Somehow, in the intensity that was Myka’s relationship with Helena G. Wells, she’d forgotten all about Pete. About the fact that she’d kissed Pete. She’d managed to forget that, despite never having defined the relationship as exclusive, Myka Bering was technically dating Pete Latimer.

“What’s wrong, Myka?” Helena asked, standing up and resting a hand on Myka’s shoulder.

Myka took a step back because her head was spinning, and Helena touching her would not help matters.

“I, I’m,” Myka started.

I’m what? Seeing Pete? Kissing and flirting with and possibly going on a date with Pete? Sick at the thought that I kissed my work partner before I ever kissed you? Absolutely certain that I don’t ever want to kiss anyone else when you look at me like that?

Myka wasn’t sure how exactly to even have that conversation.

“It’s just, it’s a lot,” Myka said as she sat back down on the couch.

It was the truth. This _was_ a lot, a lot of change and weighty, potentially life-changing declarations flying around. Myka thought she could be forgiven for being a bit overwhelmed. At the thought that Helena loved her. At re-realizing that she was deeply in love with Helena. At the thought that she was going to have to break things off with her partner, her best friend.

Because that was the only thing that Myka was crystal clear on. She couldn’t be with Pete, shouldn’t be with Pete, not now that she knew what kissing Helena felt like. As hard as it might be to disappoint Pete, Myka knew that it wouldn’t be fair to any of them to allow things to progress with Pete.

Acknowledging that, coming to that decision, had a calming effect. For the first time in a long time, Myka knew what she wanted. This time she didn’t need to be told by other random government agents, Pete’s ex-girlfriend, her boss, a table, or the people around the table who she should be kissing. And it had taken _all_ those things before it even occurred to Myka that she should kiss Pete.

Myka’d discovered all on her own that Helena was the person she should be kissing. Myka knew what she wanted.

And what Myka wanted in that moment was to spend a few more quiet moments with Helena.

“Do you think we could maybe just talk for a little while?” Myka asked. “Or read. Maybe we could just read out loud like we use to.”

Helena looked at Myka for a long second before nodding.

“Yes, of course,” she said with a grin as she continued looking at Myka. “I do think I can manage that.”

* * *

Pete arrived at the Warehouse about three hours later, and the library ten minutes after that, because Pete knew that was where Myka would spend all of her free time if she could.

He found her. Pete found her, sitting cross-legged on the couch with Helena’s feet resting in her lap as she idly rested her hand on Helena’s ankle. She was watching and listening to Helena read something Pete didn’t quite understand. Myka seemed to though. Her eyes never left Helena’s face. Pete could only see the side of Myka’s face, but he could see enough to _know_.

There was an intimacy to the scene, an intensity in the way Myka looked Helena that Pete didn’t need his vibes to notice. A level and type of intimacy that Pete never felt when Myka looked at him. And, if he was being brutally honest with himself, he’d never really felt that way towards Myka either. Sure, there was affection and loyalty, and even a familial love there. But Pete had never seen or felt even a whisper of the intensity that he was witnessing now.

Pete knew what he was witnessing, understood instinctively, and was surprised by how ok he was with it. Making out with Myka? That was all kinds of fun. But he couldn’t possibly imagine letting that get in the way of something like what Myka and Helena had, not when his partner’s happiness was concerned.

Pete didn’t need his vibes to know what he had to do next. He took out his phone and typed out a quick message.

_Kiss her, you fool ;) n don’t come chasing after me, ive always been faster than you anyway :p_

Pete hit send and watched. A second later, Myka shifted and reached in her pocket for her cell phone. Helena paused and looked up from her reading as Myka unlocked her phone. It took her just a second to read the message. Her brow furrowed as she looked around, then spotted Pete in the doorway.

“ _Shit_ ,” Pete muttered to himself as he jumped out of view several seconds too late.

He set off running even though he knew it was a lost cause. Despite what he liked to consistently claim, Myka was definitely faster than he was. She was quite a bit faster, so he only made it the length of about two aisles before she caught up, turned him around, and pulled him into a big hug.

“Are you sure?” Myka asked.

Pete grinned as he raised his eyebrows.

“Am I sure that I want to see two smoking hot ladies makeout?” Pete replied. “Well, duh, of course I’m sure about _that_.”

“No, I mean,” Myka said, looking down at her shoes then back up at Pete. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Pete said as he shrugged. “I mean, I like kissing you, but it’s nothing like what you’ve got going on in there, Mykes. You get a relationship where you look at each other the way you and H.G. do, then you’ve gotta give that a try.”

Myka smiled and her eyes started watering, and he really hoped she didn’t start crying. So Pete pulled Myka into a hug. She hugged him back, then took a deep steadying breath.

“Thank you,” Myka said into Pete’s shoulder. “Thank you for saying that.”

“Hey, no getting sentimental on me here,” Pete said as he pulled away and smiled at Myka. “Now go on. Go kiss the girl.”

Myka hugged Pete once more and kissed him on the cheek.

“Love you,” she said.

“Love you too,” Pete said as he made a gesture to shoo Myka away. “Now go.”

Myka grinned widely and turned to walk back to the study.

“And Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“I better not catch you trying to sneak a peek,” Myka said over her shoulder.

“Damnit,” Pete said loudly. “You ruined my master plan.”

Myka laughed.

“Go do your inventory, Pete,” she yelled back as she continued walking away.

Pete groaned theatrically so that Myka could hear, but he smiled as he watched Myka walk with new energy quickly back to the library.

A smile still on his lips, Pete turned back towards the center of the Warehouse. 

Everything would be alright. Strike that, Pete’s vibes were telling him that everything was going to be great. Everything was as it should be; the Warehouse was settling back into its usual rhythm and routine.

At that moment Pete saw a static ball jump from one shelf to the other directly over his head.

Well, Pete thought, still grinning, things were about as routine as could be at Warehouse 13.

**Author's Note:**

> Might try to get back into writing for these two, so if you have some thoughts or ideas, I'd love to hear them, either here or over on Tumblr as myka-wells. Thanks for reading!


End file.
